The power of early food trades

True_Candyman said:
How is this overpowered when everyone has equal access to do the same thing and plenty of chances to stop it?
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That does not necessarily have anything to do with it. A feature can be overpowered compared to the rest of the features in the game, even if everybody has access to it. If a Trade Caravan had given 50 fpt in ancient era, it would clearly be overpowered - or let's at least call it unbalanced. I can't myself say whether the 6 base is too much or not without playing the game, but it does seem ... high. Remember that the food in trade route is sort of "mana from heaven", you don't take it from anywhere (apart from the production you put into the unit, which is admittedly a large investment in early game), so it's not irrelevant how big the number is for overall game balance.
 
gunnergoz said:
Is what is shipped to the other city (food or hammers) deducted from the production of the sending city?
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Nope, it just uses the caravan for the trade route. Nothing is deducted.

I stacked Fertility Rite/Tradition/Swords into Plowshares and put two cities in the jungle and sent food to them. In the 30 turns, I think it hit 10 population. Currently it has surpassed my capital. I was playing as Shoshone so the cities also have bananas.
 
It's not that unbalanced.... usually by midgame the tradeoff for a cargo ship is something like 8 food or 15 gold and 2 science.

For your first trade route or two, gold is so scarce it's kind of hard to pass up 8 gold 3 science for 6 food. Especially since you need a couple of ships to maintain that trade route (which cost gold to maintain). Probably the way to go for a liberty start (and makes your capital even less important), but for Tradition, you probably still want the gold/science, assuming you have a neighboring civ.
 
I think it should at least deduct the food from the city the trade route is based in, that seems pretty weird to have free food and production come up from nowhere. Caravans and cargo ships do not create anything other than commerce, nor should they.
 
OmniPotent42 said:
I think it should at least deduct the food from the city the trade route is based in, that seems pretty weird to have free food and production come up from nowhere. Caravans and cargo ships do not create anything other than commerce, nor should they.
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While I don't disagree with the realism you portray here, how many Civs/playthroughs can you think of where you had the food lying around in one city and another city you wanted to grow badly enough to sacrifice a large gpt to simply move it between cities?

The current system may or may not be overpowered; however, it's at least debatable. I think a change so that Internal Trade Routes subtract from one city to give to another would be used approximately 0% of the time.
 
I think it is too early to say internal TRs are OP.

Starting near all that salt, in your example Tabarnak, is what I would call OP. 4 salt resources in adjacent tiles, as well as crab and gold nearby? For reals?!?! That is awesome.

I do think that using your first TR to send food to a secondary city is a no brainer. The GPT without a caravansary just doesn't compare to the +3 food.
 
Venice gets twice the caravans. Its easy to get 2 Merchants of Venice early allowing 2 food caravans back to Venice.
 
budweiser said:
Venice gets twice the caravans. Its easy to get 2 Merchants of Venice early allowing 2 food caravans back to Venice.
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True, but you also have to somehow acquire Granaries in those cities before you do that. (Maybe use a third MoV to Trade Mission one of the cities you acquire first?) You also have to build the trade units, which is not the quickest thing in the world.
 
kaspergm said:
That does not necessarily have anything to do with it. A feature can be overpowered compared to the rest of the features in the game, even if everybody has access to it.
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Yup.

This reminds me of Supply Crawlers in SMAC. And as anyone that played that game can tell you, the game more or less revolved around them.

If investing current production in future growth and production weren't a winning strategy, we would not observe players producing Settlers. Balancing such investment mechanics is an empirical problem, and a very tricky one at that. Too little bonus, and no one makes the investment; too great, and it's a boring no-brainer choice that introduces micro without adding strategic depth.
 
OmniPotent42 said:
I think it should at least deduct the food from the city the trade route is based in, that seems pretty weird to have free food and production come up from nowhere. Caravans and cargo ships do not create anything other than commerce, nor should they.
Click to expand...

The food/production isn't free.

in game terms it comes at the cost of gold

in "realism", by moving stuff back and forth you are able to be more productive.

Your farmers in city A can spend more time working in the fields and growing the best local crops instead of making clothes and growing a balanced diet because you are importing clothes and other crops from other areas.

Your workers can be more productive and focus on building specific items, that they then trade and import for the production you use.

[after all in "realism" terms caravans don't make gold either, the only way to make gold is mining and alchemy]
 
Buccaneer said:
A Martin Alvito sighting!
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Yup, I'm around this time. Tried G&K after D3 stopped being a printing press in December, quickly got frustrated with the economic mechanics. Petra really, really did not need to happen.

Abusive food mechanics being widely available should level things out there somewhat. I don't like the fact that the RNG is now dictating the availability of both AI abuse and research agreements, but I suppose it can't be helped. Something did need to be done there.
 
KrikkitTwo said:
The food/production isn't free.

in game terms it comes at the cost of gold

in "realism", by moving stuff back and forth you are able to be more productive.

Your farmers in city A can spend more time working in the fields and growing the best local crops instead of making clothes and growing a balanced diet because you are importing clothes and other crops from other areas.

Your workers can be more productive and focus on building specific items, that they then trade and import for the production you use.

[after all in "realism" terms caravans don't make gold either, the only way to make gold is mining and alchemy]
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Don't take this as offensive because I really mean it: I like the way you try to explain the oddities of this game through rational attempts :lol:

That said when alchemy actually produced gold? :)
 
pilot00 said:
Don't take this as offensive because I really mean it: I like the way you try to explain the oddities of this game through rational attempts :lol:

That said when alchemy actually produced gold? :)
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Thanks, I like doing it. (although sometimes its painful.. but then you think of what it would be like to play a True sim civ, and you are much happier dealing with CivV game)

Well it hasn't worked quite yet... although we probably could do it now (alchemy->chemistry->nuclear physics.. just use a particle accelerator).... you could probably make gold for less than a million$ an ounce
 
adwcta said:
It's not that unbalanced.... usually by midgame the tradeoff for a cargo ship is something like 8 food or 15 gold and 2 science.

For your first trade route or two, gold is so scarce it's kind of hard to pass up 8 gold 3 science for 6 food. Especially since you need a couple of ships to maintain that trade route (which cost gold to maintain).
Click to expand...

I will take the +6 food anytime. The comparison isn't even close. Food is transfered into science and hammers for your cities. More population brings more gold later. The evidence is clear, at least for me. I still think that these early food trades are OP.

Gamewizard said:
Starting near all that salt, in your example Tabarnak, is what I would call OP. 4 salt resources in adjacent tiles, as well as crab and gold nearby? For reals?!?! That is awesome.
Click to expand...

No cities are riversided...but yeah 4 salts is still awesome. Still, you can compare better starts(deserts with adjacent mountain, marble,etc)

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What some people still don't understand is the food/hammer/gold/ratio. And for now the ratio is way too unbalanced.

Food>Hammers>Gold

Food can be transfered into population, which gives more science and production(buildings), which lead to more gold.

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You can generate gold with ambassies(1 gpt), you can sell ressources(horses and iron) in grapes of 3 or 4 for 4 or 5 gpt respectively, you can also sell luxs for 6 gpt(if they have enough gpt). Meanwhile, it's preferably better to concentrate on growth(population), the milk cow of civ games.
 
Martin Alvito said:
Yup, I'm around this time. Tried G&K after D3 stopped being a printing press in December, quickly got frustrated with the economic mechanics. Petra really, really did not need to happen.

Abusive food mechanics being widely available should level things out there somewhat. I don't like the fact that the RNG is now dictating the availability of both AI abuse and research agreements, but I suppose it can't be helped. Something did need to be done there.
Click to expand...

D3: Mighty Ducks?!? (I kid).

You probably won't be surprised to find out how many people re-rolled the start just so they can get a desert hills start so they can go Desert Folklore and Petra. It almost seemed mandatory.

Good point, as usual, about abuses being an equalizer. I hope that is the case and that the AI can take advantage of it now that AI unhappiness comes into play more. Something is going to have to create large AI cities so they can keep up in science and offer some semblance of defense.
 
So sorry off topic, but completely necessary. To go off Buccaneer, a Davemcw, Martin Alvito, and Bibor sighting all in 1 day! Wow!
 
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